Extracrypticular activities….. Why would I spend my Saturday at a conference?

It’s a sunny Saturday in February at my home in Torreguadiaro, Spain. So, what is on the agenda for today; meeting friends for Tapas? A trip away, perhaps Sierra Nevada? No… I’m about to drive to Gibraltar for a Cryptocurrency conference. “This is madness” I hear the imaginary crowd say…… “You work all week in Gibraltar, why on earth would you drive back there to do a “work thing”? And actually….. why would I?

Before leaving the house I listened to a voice message from my friend after telling her that this is how I’m spending my Saturday. The exact transcript of her reply is….

You’ll have to talk to me about it because I gotta be honest and say right about now…. It doesn’t do ANYTHING for me, that whole crypto world…. Nothing! I mean I don’t really know anything about it but I don’t really feel inclined to know anything about it either. Which is weird… you know what I’m like, I would normally like to think “oh this is kind of a new thing” and want to learn about it but I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO inclination to know what any of its about (giggling) so, maybe you should educate me. Try to have a conversation with me but position it bearing in mind that ALREADY, I don’t care about it. So, let’s make that a little challenge for you DN. See if you can actually spark my interest and explain it in a way that makes me give a damn. As at the moment, you are like, more excited than a piped up kid that’s thinking about Father Christmas coming, and it’s your birthday, and you’ve just eaten a bag of chocolates and you’ve got a new bike arriving….. and I’m just like…. Crypto, Shmypto…. Couldn’t care less!

Well challenge accepted! But that is for another day. Today, I’m just going to go to the conference to learn. I have no idea what to expect, how big this thing will be, how useful or what type of people will be there but this is how I decided to spend my Saturday and I’m running with it.

It’s being held at the World Trade Centre, WTC for short. This is the new building in Gibraltar which is the new, cool and prestigious address where some iGaming companies have already made the move to and is set to be the hub within the hub of Gibraltar for Crypto. The event is sold out and I scan in the room to see people mostly in their late 20’s, 30’s and early 40’s, 80% are casual businessy types, a few hipster people with piercings and a couple of older guys in chino’s that look like they might be directors of something… and I realise that this is an exact representation of what an iGaming company meeting would look like. And it becomes even more apparent that this Crypto world is fitting to Gibraltar.

The speakers are a line up of cool Americans, the main speaker is the 3rd guy from the left in glasses, Kurt Wuckert Jr. He is funny, confident and engaging from the very first moment. The other main speaker is the guy to his right, also in glasses by the name of Matthew John, a quirky, brainy dude that chips in once in while to explain a chart. One of the first questions to the room is “who here bought their first crypto in 2016? A few hands.. 2017? 90% of hands. 2018? One hand. Awww… a noob, we all unanimously think in silence…. Even though I reckon 90% of the 90% first popped our heads out of the sand in the very late 2017, just about the time when you couldn’t open a phone or laptop without a story such as ‘Lilly Allen could have been paid in Bitcoin for a concert and she would be a Billionaire now’ popping up. This, as it turns out was the very wrong time to first buy Crypto. I think it was Matthew who said, during one of his chart talks about Bitcoin during December 2017, “people were actually BUYING at this price”. Meanwhile the room laughs I wonder how many people like me are feeling like a complete idiot.

In a Socrates type mindset, I knew that I had very little knowledge before I went to the conference. I had read, watched, listened and chatted but still had very little grasp of how to trade. My strategy… if you can even call it a strategy was to HODL. Which is to hold. Some guy misspelt it once on a forum 2013 and it became a ‘thing’. I also have a vested interest in the industry as I want to recruit for it. But once you peek inside the industry, it’s very easy to become intrigued, interested and then obsessed with this new crypto world. I mean they have their own music for a start… yes there are brilliantly fun rap videos on YouTube about Bitcoin. I guess apart from the money and freedom incentives, the pull towards Crypto is the global community. And as humans we like communities. It’s a special world that still only a small percentage of the population are part of and those people tend to be smart. I guess it’s also a similar feeling to discovering a brilliant new band or TV show before it hits the mainstream.

During the conference I had several AHA, NOW I GET IT moments. I trust these guys. When you watch and read stuff online, in the background there is usually an unsettling feeling that what you are being told is not 100% authentic as the people have an agenda. Some of the time, they have a vested interest in you buying a certain coin, ICO or clicking on a link. But with these guys I feel like I have found the heart of the crypto world and the clouds have been lifted. I learned so much. I learned how to analyse a chart for a start. I learned the practical side but also the emotional elements of trading. Also I am now well equipped to face to the challenge of convincing the most uninterested person that crypto is exciting. All in all, I can say this has been the most useful and inspiring Saturday I have ever spent so thanks to the guys at Crypto Traders Pro!

By Danielle Nason

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